The Broken Man

by Hawkings Austin

  Waylaid said that there were things that walked the careful line between magic and sorcery called blood magic, but Piju didn’t know what they might be. With magic you simply asked a spirit for help, with sorcery you commanded it. Perhaps enslaving your own spirit wasn’t evil, but it was wrong nonetheless. No man should be bound, dead or alive.

  Many of the slaves had tried to find some link to the wild Bolg while living in Ard. Some of it was simply changing from the common tunic and wrapped linen leggings of the Ruad into the kilt and vest of the Bolg. More deeply, they wanted the spiritual life of the Bolg which was completely missing in the Ruad world.

  “The Burning Ghost wasn’t our ancestor,” Piju admitted. “But Waylaid spoke with the ghost, and the ghost appeared happy to accept Waylaid as his kin and me as Waylaid’s son.” In Fomor societies, training stays within family, so taking an apprentice from outside is normally thought akin to adoption.

  “It sounds silly, but while Waylaid calls himself a Bolg, his relatives would call me a Fomor. Since I am Waylaid’s apprentice, and I call you my family, then the ghost can call you his family. Hopefully, the spirit will treat my family well, and that is all that matters.”

  The ghost didn’t seem very worried about who his family was and who it wasn’t. Waylaid had said that the man had been buried for more than a thousand years; perhaps he didn’t have much of a grasp on who his descendants might be.

  He did not tell Mistress Wing or Master Waylaid everything. Some aspects of this process were very disturbing to him. Some aspects were very positive, though. Waylaid had told him that the spirit could help stop house fires. He didn’t know how much the ghost could do, but just using the oven instead of the house hearths had saved lives this summer. The women had told him that most summers there was more than one house fire, and often several people died. In winter, all the houses would want fires, and there would be accidents. Maybe fatal accidents, but he’d count those dead when they happened, not before.

  Mistress Wing called for one of the boys, who brought her one of his red hens. One of the gate guards had told Piju that the wild hens with the red head were supposed to be the property of the king. Piju didn’t think that it was possible for anyone to own a wild bird, so they were probably wrong. This particular bird was a wild bird that Piju had trapped late in Spring Moon, and the slaves had been keeping her in a small basket-woven cage ever since. The wild hen had provided them with many eggs and a gaggle of baby hens, but it was time for her to go to the fire.

  He walked to the oven door and opened it; the heat wasn’t great just inside the door, but the smoke was strong. There were three boys who tended the fire around their owner’s time. The one on duty was a young man almost old enough for an apprenticeship. This one also tended the fire at the local bakery, so he had plenty of practice. At work, he no doubt wore a proper tunic, but in the slave quarters, he had stopped wearing the tunic and breeches of the Ruad and had started wearing a kilt and vest like Piju.

  He grinned at Piju and took the opportunity to run to the far end, where the fire was laid. He bowed to the fire, said a small prayer to the spirit, and dropped a log on it. He ducked under the hanging venison and jogged out past Piju with a pitying look on his face. The fire tender’s job was hard enough; Piju’s job was harder.

  Piju’s first words were easy, a ritual Waylaid had taught him at their first ancient Fomor site, only a few days down the coast from Leest. He had learned the words in the Fomor tongue, which the spirits seemed to prefer.

  “Spirits who were Men, I call you. I ask for your protection.” The words had never seemed to do anything, but Waylaid had said that he was saying them correctly.

  Piju entered and closed the door. He ducked under the cold-smoked venison and walked the length of the building, into the face of the fire. It wasn’t a large fire, but it was hot, fed from a tunnel of fresh air that ran under the floor.

  The tunnel in the floor had been carved by the Fomor a millennium ago to serve a kiln built upon it. A kiln is a sacred thing to the Fomor, and they had buried a human sacrifice beneath it to protect the kiln from their angry gods. They had used sorcery, fed blood and souls to this man’s spirit, and controlled him for as long the Fomor fortress had stood upon this spot. They were gone. The kiln was gone. Everything should have been lost and forgotten.

  After the riots, the slaves’ barracks had been burned down, and the air channel had been discovered beneath the floor of their men’s lodge. The slaves had needed an oven of their own because the Ruad no longer trusted them to be outside of the barracks unless they were on their owners’ business. The slaves had dug out the far end, where the air sucked in, and built a bread oven on top.

  The men’s lodge had sprawled over a lot more land than the oven, so there was space now for a central road to the gate and a lot more courtyard for the women to work in during the day. There was still a lodge for young girls and women who didn’t have a house, but they said it didn’t have an air channel under it.

  He squatted under the oven racks before the fire, the hot air only drying his skin faster. The oven racks had been built into the bricks above and were opened and closed from the outside. Only he and the fire tender needed to suffer this. He spoke in Fomor the words Waylaid had taught him.

  “Awake, Spirit of Fire, attend me.”

  He lifted the basket cage and waved it over the smoke. Piju was lightheaded himself, but the bird was near collapse from the fumes. He carefully untied the bars. His hand slid in and pulled the hen into the air. The bird fought, but her wings were limp before he broke its neck and pulled off its head. The head went into the fire, along with blood from the body.

  For several moments, nothing happened, and Piju wondered if he had failed the ritual somehow.

  “Awake, Spirit of Fire, attend me,” He repeated.

  The hen shriveled into a brown lump; the feathers sizzled in the sudden heat. Unlike his master, he couldn’t see the spirit, but the fire seemed to have a shape it had lacked before. The thoughts formed in his head more than words, more like remembering that someone had spoken than hearing them speak.

  …more...

  It wanted blood. He looked into the fire, but he knew that the hen hadn’t satisfied it, wasn’t enough.

  Piju sat aside the basket and thought for a moment. Yes, no, maybe? He started to shrug but then firmed himself. His lips were cracked, his throat a bare rasp through which words could pass.

  “Spirit of Fire, protect me from the fire.”

  He swallowed and suddenly felt a faint distance from the fire, as though he were floating. Perhaps his body would die below, but the pain was more distant, and he was sure of what he was going to do. He wouldn’t kill, but he was willing to sacrifice himself.

  He pulled his knife from his belt, a thin piece of obsidian from across the shallow sea. The blade was smooth and shiny black, as long as his hand. The knife had been crafted by Waylaid to lay Piju’s father to rest, and for Piju to use in any magic. Waylaid said that his true name, his adult name, was written under the leather straps which wound around the stone, making a simple hilt.

  As always, when Piju handled it, he imagined pulling off the leather straps to find the name his father had chosen. Waylaid had said that in naming him, his father had been gripped by a strange prophecy, but the time of that prophecy had not yet arisen. Someday, he would know the right time. Again, he denied himself this urge to look. The ceremony with Waylaid had made this stone knife, graven with his true name, a part of him, unlike a metal blade, which was never a part of a man.

  Lifting his vest, he sliced a shallow cut below his heart. He felt he was floating, and the cut gave back almost no sensation at all. He cupped the wound with his left hand, letting it fill with blood. Then he raised his left hand over the fire and squeezed out the blood.

  As the blood touched the fire, he felt the connection to the Burning Man. It gripped him, gripped his soul. If I bind you, I would be safe. Without a proper binding, a limit on
how much the spirit could take, it could kill him.

  The first thing he hadn’t told Waylaid, in all the time they had been together, was that he hadn’t been able to find a hen the first time. When he had been locked in here with no one to save him, the only sacrifice the fire would accept was Piju. He felt a slight drain on his spirit, a weariness that dragged him back into his body. I will not enslave you to save me.

  Piju knew the difference between spirit service and sorcery. This was sorcery. The cut in his side was a dry white line, as if it were days old, and the blood flaked from his hands. He lifted the cage and stumbled back to the door, pounding on it. Half a year ago, there hadn’t been anyone to open that door for him, and he had nearly died. He had lain on the floor, sucking the slight gasp of fresh air beneath the door, slowly dying.

  But Waylaid had come for him; Piju had never doubted that he would. It had taken weeks for him to recover; but the Bolg had a working oven, and no lasting harm had been done. More than that, he had found something worth dying for, a people he had lost at Leest.

  The people of Leest, the people he was born to, hadn’t been bad to him, hadn’t hurt him, but they had been willing to sell his life to a stranger. Right or wrong as that decision might have been, they were willing to give him away, but these people clung to him as their only hope. Maybe he was.

  The fire tender opened the door for him, and Piju stumbled out, exhausted. The young man placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “I don’t know how you survive that, Piju, you are either amazing, or crazy.”

  Piju shook his head and gave him a half-shrug.

  “I hope I am—at least a little.”

  “Amazing?”

  “Whichever, either will do.” The fresh air cleared his head, but his belly rumbled with hunger. He looked hopefully at the ladies, but they were letting the dough rise in the sun. They weren’t about to put food into the oven, much less feed him.

  He could stay and play with the small ones, but if the Mistress wanted Waylaid, it was important. He looked over at the oven. If it involved the Palace, it could be a slave matter. And, if it was a slave matter, it was probably his fault. Since Samu had been running around all morning, he was very likely late already.

  “Counting the Mistress, the Master, and the King as three of the same things—at least to me—the Ruad rule of three said that things which came in threes could not be ignored.” Piju wasn’t sure if that counted as superstition or philosophy, but the rule seemed to fit, so he brushed himself off and started out the gate.

  CHAPTER 7 A SIMPLE MEAL

  Noon, Midsummer’s Day, Year Twenty-Seven of King Cail’s Reign

  Philosophers do the work of the mind, on a well-fed stomach.

  - Ruad Teaching

  The doors swung open before Judge Brea, the guards standing well back from the swing of her blade, and she strode out of the Hall of Thrones and into the brightest part of the day. The sun stood at the hour of noon and the white stone buildings had become a dazzling display of light. The brilliant white light reflecting off of every surface was a knife of pain in her dim-accustomed eyes. The heat of the plaza was impressive. She walked into a wall of light and heat that signaled the start of summer as surely as the measurement of the Good Father’s stars.

  The guards took a long time closing the doors behind them, waiting for Oren, who trailed behind. He took Answerer from Brea’s trembling fingers, holding it gently like a child. Brea shook all over with suppressed rage; Oren and Keynan were the only creatures she trusted standing next to her in that moment. They protected her from any who might approach and equally guarded the Ruad people from the unmitigated wrath of the Daen. Their guide seemed to appreciate her temper and held himself five paces, nearly the full width of the Hall’s steps, to the side. The Ruad looked out at the crowds below and adjusted his white robes. He occupied the corner of the upper terrace as though he had planned a presentation for his afternoon activities. His calm demeanor in the face of this near catastrophe as well as his seven-banded sleeves clearly showed that he was a master philosopher.

  Oren and Keynan guarded her from the crowds, but the common folk seemed to sense the menace pouring off them. None dared approach. The paired Ruad guards stayed by the door, at one side of the terrace, and the four of them stood alone at the top of the steps of the Hall of Thrones. After a few breaths, Brea gathered her wits together again. She finally managed to relax and brought her battle aura down, slowly letting go of her rage. Her eyes dimmed further as she moved into rage blindness. She calmed herself through the paranoia and nausea, seeking the peace of the calm mind. She was suddenly weak with hunger, and her head near to splitting with pain. She took deep breaths and brought her shattered self-control back together.

  The door swung open again behind them and she tensed, feeling her heart pound again, rage building for the second time. A nobleman she could not identify stepped out behind them. Rage blind, she saw him as little more than a red shadow. Tensing as he walked up behind them, she turned and reached for Answerer, which had been hooked into Oren’s shoulder harness for carrying. Oren took her hand instead, understanding the call of the rage inside her.

  Keynan moved away, putting himself between the noble and his aunt. Brea paused, confused for a moment, waiting for some further sign from the man. She would not fight Oren, so she waited, staring blankly at Keynan’s back.

  Instead of trying to approach her, the nobleman stepped up to Keynan. Taking on none of the manners of the noble class, the man extended his hand to shake as a commoner and Keynan gripped his forearm with no sign of anger or fear.

  “I am called Liest.” His title went unspoken. “I am glad I didn’t have to fight you, Daen, you clearly have a long arm.”

  The nobleman was tall for a Ruad, broad and strong, but Keynan was more than head and shoulders above him. Keynan nodded at him solemnly.

  “I’m called Master Keynan, and I’m sore glad I didn’t have to kill you. With the spears coming…” Keynan shook his head. “It would have been fast at least.” Keynan didn’t boast of his sword work, though it was fine enough. The Daen simply didn’t see how the little man would have a chance against him.

  The Ruad noble, his honor pricked, lifted his chin in an arrogant posture.

  “Well then, hopefully we will have time to kill each other at our leisure, next time.” He fingered the hilt of his blade. The bronze was thin and long, built to fight against the advantages of his Daen rulers.

  “No,” said Keynan, shrugging with complete unconcern. “I don’t really care to kill you. I’d rather you just found me a vase of wine, and we got over it.”

  Brea was amazed. The words made no sense coming from a Daen, it was something a Ruad philosopher would say. She listened to the nobleman’s measured laugh; he was late coming to court this morning for a reason. The nobleman likely spent the night entertaining the philosophers.

  Well, if he is going to build contacts in the Daen court with long nights and good wine, Keynan is probably his best choice.

  “Good man,” Liest said. “I think I have an amphora from Murias itself. I’d be happy to treat you.”

  Keynan looked up into the sky. The morning had gone fast and the sun was about as high as it would get. He yelled over to Brea. “Auntie, I’m going for the hounds. I’ll find you outside the walls.” He marked a position in the sky with his extended arm, “Before half sun at least.”

  “Go,” she replied. She excused him seeking the wine. Key needs his release as much as anyone. If he shows battle madness less than I do, well, he is calmer. If I need less to recover my emotions than he does, well, I am older.

  Perhaps she lied to herself about her sister’s son, who she treated as her own, but she wasn’t the first woman who had done that. Her vision was clear at last and, except for the headache and the hunger, she was recovered from her anger in the court. The battle madness had left a weakness in her limbs. She would shake it off, in time, but a good meal would help.


  How Coscar could go from battle to battle, his aura bright, I will never know. She still loved and worshiped her husband and king.

  She saw Piju at the foot of the stairs. In this hot weather, he was wearing an eight-part cloak, taken from the messenger boy, no doubt.

  “Where is Waylaid?” she called.

  “Samu, your messenger, found me. He told me that Master Waylaid had been run out of the city. Since Master Waylaid left the library before Samu got there, he didn’t get your message. I don’t know where he is or what he is doing beyond that.” Piju walked up the stairs to join them. He looked troubled.

  “Who would run Waylaid out of town?” she asked. “I need Waylaid here, not involved in some Dragon-inspired nonsense.” Her temper had not quite evened out from her previous rage, or she would not resort to such language. Her volume increased. “How in Her Blessed name did that happen?”

  “No idea, Mistress Brea. I can go search for him if you like.” Piju simply shrugged an honest Daen shrug.

  “I feel like the Dragon himself has taken an interest in this,” Brea growled. She calmed herself, taking a deep breath. She was a judge and a leader. She didn’t let circumstances overwhelm her like that. She took a second deep breath and determined her course of action.

  “I need a courier. I need Berin. I need Waylaid. I need to know what is happening, now.”

  “If you can wait, I’ll go check on the Library. It shouldn’t take too long,” Oren said. He looked disgusted at the thought of running all over town, but it would be better for him to do it than leave it to his mistress.

  Mistress Brea put her hand upon his arm.

  “We need to go to where the child was killed, first. To figure out what happened, I may need Waylaid. If there is a murderer to find, I’ll need Keynan. If there is going to be a fight, I want Berin and the boys.